


at least i got you in my head

by yunsohno



Category: Fruits Basket
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Fight Sex, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Hand Jobs, Heavy Petting, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Unrequited Crush, Unrequited Love, idk fam this whole thing is a rollercoaster lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-10-05 22:03:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20496041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yunsohno/pseuds/yunsohno
Summary: With a trailing look down, Yuki noticed, up close, that Kakeru’s bottom lip was somewhat chapped. A small spot in the middle, more worn and pink than the rest of his pale mouth. The color before a bruise. Freshly aggravated.Oh. Not chapped, he quickly realized, bringing himself back to look at his eyes. Bitten.“Well,” Kakeru sighed, voice airy, soft as he conceded, “night, Yun.”As he leaned in, Yuki thought again of the scene in the window. Kakeru leaning in, just as he was now, pressing a kiss into a stranger. Deepening it, as though that person were familiar. A scene open and public that he felt he wasn’t meant to witness, even by accident. As though he had spied on a part of Kakeru’s private life that even he had little to no access to. A secret shared with a crowded room. Something that was, in fact, not a secret at all.A flash of fury, quickly followed by shame, plunged into Yuki’s blood, and heated, he pulled his hand out of Kakeru’s grasp and abruptly stepped back, leaning away from that now unfamiliar mouth.--Yuki and Kakeru go to a party. Yuki wants things to be a bit more.





	at least i got you in my head

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [laughing til our ribs get tough](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20141203) by [a-bigail (spacepuck)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacepuck/pseuds/a-bigail). 

> this is a sequel to [laughing til our ribs get tough](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20141203). (did i make a whole separate ao3 for nsfw fics.......yes lmao.)

There was a tang in the air that was becoming more and more familiar to Yuki’s senses as he neared the end of his second college year. An off-putting mesh of nicotine and sweat, of over-poured liquor and sickly-sweet smoke that hung as a translucent curtain in each small and overcrowded room in the home, whose host he had not yet seen and didn’t even really know. Scents that buzzed with the thick currents of loosened laughter and pockets of conversations, words simultaneously slurred and yelled, muted only somewhat with the low-lying anxieties of the neighbors complaining, or the police lying in wait to shut the party down.

Not that Yuki would mind it getting shut down. Though he no longer had to worry about the press and swell of crowds, the overwhelming closeness still made him itch. Even as he let a shot or two warm his stomach, and invited the haze of a weak high to keep himself from getting completely outdone by all of the skin and breath and movement, he found he could never relax to a level where the urge to run out the front door fell mum. House parties, in particular — rare as they were, especially rare that they ended up so crowded as to feel lost at sea — sent a twang of escapism down Yuki’s spine the moment he stepped foot inside. Always footing in him a longing to run straight into the dead of night, to the middle of a street empty and cool, bereft of noise and sticky skin pressed to sticky skin. To take in steeping breaths, breathing in mile after mile of the city’s midnight and letting it coil and slouch into his lungs, before spilling each rope back out onto the asphalt. To look up at the sky, tinged grey by the light pollution, to seek out constellations he recognized as a boy, only to find those far-off mythologies reduced to a faint smattering of lacerations in the night.

He didn’t want to go alone, though; he wanted all of that, with the only familiar face in the house escaping alongside him. Walking with him in woozy-legged tandem while giving the late hour the only noise necessary in the form of teasing words and belly laughs. The only sticky patch of skin that he wouldn’t mind pressing into in either accidental passing or, as was the case lately, with purposeful indentations. Guiding fingertips pressing into forearms and palms, cheekbones pressed to one another’s to pass along too-loud whispers in the midst of conversations with strangers. A palm pressed to a waist here, a clammy hand cupping the back of a neck there. Overly warm, yet returned. Sweltering, yet not unwanted. 

“Yo, Yun-Yun!”

Yuki looked up, following the noise to the other end of the room. While he stood tucked to the wall, only vaguely involved in the conversation occurring beside him, Kakeru waded his way through the net of bodies to meet him. His face was flush with one too many drinks, smile loping and happy. When he came close enough to grip Yuki’s arm, stepping so close it was possible to smell the exact concoction sheening his upper lip, Yuki, despite his growing discomfort, offered the barest of a teasing look. 

“You look happy,” he said.

To Kakeru, crowds were never a bother. Even when they got rowdy, sometimes growing to that point by his own hand, he walked through them with some sense of purpose that Yuki found difficult to replicate. As teens, Yuki saw him as something like the eye of a maelstrom, some central force that pulled others in without warning. He remembered feeling that way himself, feeling a turbulent thrum affect his footing when the other boy drew near, the storm jostling awake his feelings of inadequacy that he, himself, could never in his dreams draw people to him like Kakeru did. He also remembered that his presence made him feel acutely alive and known.

But now, as he observed his friend from afar, watching him maneuver the apartment parties and karaoke bar get-togethers, the trips to night clubs and 24-hour restaurants, he realized that he was less of a force of nature, and more like a line of sugar for ants to find and feed from. They would come close and pick off his energy, his laughter, his nature, taking his jokes and his spirit and scurrying away with their newfound, though temporary, lust for life, only to return to him later as a trustworthy source for more when they found the party had dulled without him. 

And Yuki would watch as he would feed himself to them, one social stomach to the next, until he left to replenish himself with another drink, another quick smoke, on a quiet corner of the pavement outside. His life for the next two, three, four hours, until he would at last give his hearty goodbyes and resign himself to a softer-spoken walk home, breathy laughs and tired eyes, before meeting the silence of sleep.

It was exhausting to watch. And yet, Kakeru never wavered. Even now, Yuki could still see the deep well of life sitting behind his eyes.

Those eyes, looking at him questioningly. 

“Of course I’m happy! It’s a party.”

Though he said this, Kakeru wore a small frown. He leaned in closer to Yuki in an effort to make his voice heard over the overwhelming chatter surrounding them, and he asked, with overtly-sweet breath, 

“Why, are you not having fun?”

_ Rum and Coke_, Yuki pinned.

“Not really,” he said. The words left him before he could press on a smile and lie. As Kakeru’s shoulders slouched, he added, “It’s just a bit much. I might go out for some air.”

“Oh, no! You’re not gonna run away on me, are you?” Kakeru asked it with a teasing smile, but Yuki felt himself falter. That deep longing to leave hadn’t left him since they arrived, existing as an anxiety pulsing under his feet that both warned him to run and kept him firmly locked in place. Kakeru didn’t seem to notice, though, as he announced, striking a finger into the air, “The princess must return to her castle, post-haste!”

“Oh, knock it off,” Yuki scolded as he pulled his arm back down by the elbow. Some wayward glances laid on the scene, until the noise of the party distracted them again. Kakeru laughed.

“Ah, you still need to loosen up. Listen, come back and grab another drink with me, and then we can bail, ‘kay?”

Yuki frowned. He looked around Kakeru’s shoulder to survey the room, trying to find a path out to where Kakeru had emerged and failing. His hands tensed at his sides.

“_Or_,” Kakeru posited, releasing a great sigh that caused him to droop, “I can go get them, _ your highness_. Go get your fresh air, untouched by our lowly Seven Stars and canopy of sweet leaves!” 

Yuki bristled at the comment, but quickly cooled himself, crossing his arms and saying, “Alright then, court jester. Hop to it.”

He gave him a little shooing wave. Kakeru feigned a girlish scoff.

“The nerve!”

“I’ll meet you out front.”

“Alright, alright.” Before they could part for their different quests, however, Kakeru took Yuki’s wrist in hand and, pressing his cheek to his to speak into his ear, said, “We can continue the fun at home, yeah?”

Yuki felt his jaw set as a warmth spread to his neck and panged down his stomach. 

“The fun,” he knew, was some long litany of things that were added and taken off of Kakeru’s list on a whim, but lately there were some go-to activities that were becoming mainstays. Playing drinking games to bad horror movies. Getting distracted and kissing on the couch. Trying to create some Frankenstein’s monster of snacks to sate his taste buds. Deciding that Yuki’s mouth was what he wanted instead. Trying to learn smoke tricks, dragging Yuki into a shotgun kiss before ruining it by parting his lips too much, letting the smoke escape from the corners of his mouth as their tongues met and pushed it out. 

The heat of the crowded room was suddenly a godsend, Yuki realized, as he felt a redness overtake his neck and ears.

He nodded against Kakeru’s cheek. Felt their cheekbones glide over one another as he said, “Your place or mine?”

Kakeru parted from him with a grin, and without answering, made his way back through the crowd, back to a room that Yuki had never ventured to. 

Yuki left to the front of the house, where he slipped on his shoes and found a quiet place to breathe. A few others had the same idea, talking gently in small circles with cigarettes held between loose fingers. All unfamiliar faces, save for a girl he thought could be in his calculus lecture, slumped tiredly against who he presumed to be her boyfriend.

He settled himself against a column supporting the portico, thankful as it protected him from an oncoming drizzle. As he rested his head against the post, he was able to look inside through the living room window, surveying the scene that he had just escaped from and watching it play out in a quieted muffle.

It did look fun, he supposed, from the outside. He thought so, even when he knew the truth of his own limits.

_ And even then, _ he thought, looking out for that single familiar face to return to the crowd, _ you let Kakeru drag you to these things_.

He crossed his arms as the rain brought along a chill.

It was true that, in the months since starting this strange relationship — “fuck buddies,” Kakeru kept calling it, even though they never did anything more than kiss and, lately, leave behind small blooming hickeys; a term Yuki hated regardless — he had tagged along with Kakeru to the menagerie of weekend parties he was always invited to. Parties he was technically always invited to, too, but always gave a pass on unless he knew they would be small, or if he knew he could comfortably hang out with friends from classes and the few clubs he had gotten involved in. It was only lately, when Kakeru asked if he wanted to go, that he would say yes without giving it much of a second thought. 

Even though he never really wanted to go.

Even though he really just went to spend time with Kakeru, who would often wander off to talk to strangers and butt into overheard conversations. Not quite leaving Yuki behind, not intentionally, but still leaving him with a tension that made his smiles too tight and face too pinched, despite the sipped-at drinks, and despite the fact that his own two feet brought him there.

Watching Kakeru float around, casually touching the small of stranger’s backs in passing, giving some of them attentive stares as they spoke, at times kissing cheeks in farewell when he knew them by name… 

He tightened his hand into a soft fist and let it go. With it, he wished that gentle pang of envy would leave him, but it stayed, rooted firmly to his core. 

It wasn’t fair of him to feel that way. He knew that. And it was a stupid reaction to have, anyway. Even though they fooled around, as far as kissing could be considered that, they were still just friends. Kakeru could do what he wanted. And he could do what he wanted, too. 

And that was that.

So when he looked through the crowd again and spotted his friend (and it most certainly _ was _ him, wearing the black jacket with some giant patch on the back of a band neither of them heard of, a gaudy thrift store find that he was hard-pressed to take off without complaining) standing too close to someone else, a hand that wasn’t his own snaking to the back of his neck, head dipped in a long-lingering (_deepening, _ he realized) kiss, he, of course, stayed rational about it.

He bit his tongue, hard, and turned away before he could watch Kakeru do the same. 

There was a soft “Sohma_-kun?_” at his back as he walked past the girl he might have known, but an intensity made his strides long and dangerous. He feared for a moment that if he were to stop, he would have yelled at her. So he continued to the street’s shoulder, walking through the lamplight into the patch of dark, hoping the outside stragglers wouldn’t think much of his sudden exit.

His hopes didn’t matter.

“Yun? Yun! Where are you going?”

When Yuki’s response was to simply tighten his fists and force himself to walk faster, Kakeru said something indistinct, before calling out to him again.

“Yuki!”

His voice might as well have been an air siren in that moment — annoying, disorienting, calling too much attention to Yuki amidst his feeling something like a weapon as his blood ran hot. His nails dug sharp into his palms as he tried and failed to burn off the sight through the window. Trying to set fire to his ugly anger and let those feelings settle to tired ashes before Kakeru could come near again.

Behind him were the quickened steps padding against the street. As Yuki stepped beneath the next edge of lamplight, Kakeru’s hand fell tight and clammy around his wrist, causing him to jerk back a step.

“Hey—”

“_Don’t. _”

The moment the word left him, he bit his tongue again. It sounded downright petulant coming from him. Resentful, and _ childish_. He looked away as Kakeru’s brows jumped in surprise. Though anger continued to battle through him, his heart began to feel thick between his lungs.

_ Shameful_, he thought. In his palm, he felt the pinch of his nails indenting his skin. _ When did I get so... _

He felt his face twist. Kakeru made a questioning noise, and at that, Yuki forced his arm from his grip.

“I’m not feeling well,” he said. “I’m going home.”

“Woah, what? Hey!” 

Yuki started walking forward again, pleading silently that he wouldn’t follow, as he started to fear what would come out of his mouth if he didn’t carry himself home first. But Kakeru shot his hand out and, stopping him again, came around to stand in front of him, grasping him by the sleeve.

Yuki looked away.

“Are you okay?” he asked. Though his stance wavered, he suddenly sounded sober. “Shit, you didn’t get slipped something, did you?”

“What? _ No, _ I just—”

“Well, how would you know! That stuff is practically invisible. And there were without a doubt some assholes lurking around in there, looking at all the hot commods.”

Yuki grit his teeth. As he spoke, Kakeru’s hands fell onto his cheeks, his forehead marred by his furrowed brows, as though checking for a fever before returning fists to his waist.

“I mean, you’re _ kinda _ clammy, I guess.” 

He clicked his tongue a few times in thought, before saying, 

“Look, I’ll come back with you, okay? I think—”

“No.”

“No?”

Yuki reached up to scrub his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. He wanted desperately to run, to let his legs carry him home where he could safely purge himself of the disquieting thoughts swimming under his skull, but he knew Kakeru would continue to stop him until he was given a believable enough lie. And even then, it was getting harder to lie.

“You were having fun,” Yuki forced. He attempted to draw in a short, even breath, but it hit him stilted and strange. “You should go back.”

“What, and leave you alone so I can wake up to the news of you being kidnapped or something, or found on the side of the road? No, thanks!” 

Exasperation was quick to flare Yuki’s tongue. “For the last— I wasn’t drugged!” 

“Then _what_ is wrong?” Kakeru’s eyes narrowed as he asked, and under that look Yuki felt the urge to disappear. Suddenly, though, his expression went soft, and he looked to come to some realization. “Geez, are you having a panic attack or something?”

“It’s not that,” he said. He forced a steadying breath, trying to cool the heat swelling his voice. “I told you, I’m just not feeling well. Now, if you’ll _ excuse _ me.” 

He stepped to the side and, at last, pushed past Kakeru to resume his walk. 

“Yun...” Yuki tried to ignore how his voice came out somewhat hurt under the confusion. “But, you’re going—”

“I’m going home,” Yuki said. “Seriously, go back to the party. I’m fine. I’ll see you later.” 

As he walked, strides still long though not quite as fueled, Yuki didn’t hear him respond or follow. Part of him wanted to look back with the hope of seeing Kakeru’s back retreating, but he kept his eyes set ahead of him. Battling thoughts swam free and unconstrained now that those eyes were no longer on him. 

Eyes that didn’t seem to understand what had happened at all. 

Eyes that didn’t need to so much as _ think _ of what happened at all. 

_This is so stupid,_ he berated. _He can do what he wants. _

He repeated the words to himself and let them make him blind. By the time the cool railing of the steps leading up to his apartment fell under his hand, slick with the light rain, he was unsure of how long he had walked, or how, exactly, he had gotten home. But, he was glad — glad to be away from certain dark and prying eyes, glad to fall into bed or to the floor and remove his spinning thoughts bit by ugly bit. To stomp them under his heel or suffocate them under the sheets. To be rid of them and, for just a little while, feel the peace of being hollow-minded.

All was quiet except for the sound of distant late-night drivers and his footsteps falling slow and heavy up the stairs. The porch lamps lit his path yellow; the blue light of his neighbor’s television skimmed the edges of her curtains. 

There was, he thought, some solace to be had in the fact that the world continued just as neutral and normal as it always had. He could hope to match it in the morning, but for now, he just needed to get to the top of the stairs, and then— 

“Yeah, yeah, I know — sorry I bailed! I can come give you a for real send-off before you leave tomorrow, ‘kay?”

Kakeru was leaning casually against his front door, phone pressed to his ear. As his eyes came up to meet Yuki, stopped still at the far end of the balcony, he raised his brows.

“Oh, there you are! Man, you sure took your time.” 

Yuki stared. Kakeru said a quick goodbye to the stranger before sliding his phone away and turning fully to face him, shoulder pressed to the door. 

Suddenly, the cool handrail felt murky under Yuki’s hand. Out of the corner of his eye, the neighbor’s curtains fell dark as her television went off.

Neither of them stepped forward.

“What are you doing here?” Yuki managed. 

“You went the long way around, dummy. I tried to tell you.”

“No, I meant—”

“I know what you meant.”

Yuki’s brows furrowed. Though Kakeru’s gaze fell somewhat serious, he let the facade slip as easy as it had come. He sighed and pushed himself off the door.

“I told you,” he said, crossing his arms as he stood sturdy, “I didn’t like you just coming home alone, but you’re so damn stubborn sometimes, you know? So I decided to meet you here.”

“I’m not…” 

Yuki huffed. As he finally regained his nerve and walked forward, he dug his house key from his jacket. Kakeru stepped aside to let him pass, but, as Yuki slid the key into the lock, he stopped his hand from reaching the handle. Kakeru had settled against the doorframe in waiting.

“...I’m fine now,” Yuki tried.

“Oh, really? You're still looking pretty miserable to me.”

“I’m fine,” he said again, as if doing so would make it real. “I think you should go home.”

“Nah.” 

Kakeru said it so easily Yuki found himself looking at him, only to find that, though his features were neutral, his eyes held little amusement. It was a strange look for him — oddly domineering in a way he wasn’t known for.

Yuki frowned. “What do you mean, ‘no?’ It’s my apartment, you know.” 

“Sure, sure, but I think we have some unfinished business.”

“We don’t,” Yuki said, turning away with a scoff as he turned the key and pushed down on the handle. “I’m not in the mood for any of that right—”

Suddenly, Kakeru’s leg barred Yuki from entering the apartment as he quickly pressed his foot against the other side of the doorframe. A flicker of temper returned to Yuki, then, as he shot him a glare.

“Are you being _ serious _ right now—?”

“I know you’re pissed at me for some reason,” Kakeru interrupted. Yuki quieted, finding himself wordless as Kakeru continued, “And I want to know why you’re not telling me.”

“That’s…” Yuki’s hand left the handle to instead push down on Kakeru’s leg, failing to make it budge when Kakeru leaned his weight into it. He scowled. “I’m not angry at you. I told you, I’m just tired.”

“Hmm, you didn’t say you were _ tired_.”

“Oh, my god, _ don’t _ nitpick with me.”

“I’m just saying, when you walked away all in a huff, I didn’t see the back of a man who’s not feeling well.” Though he waved a hand idly at the words, his face was written with suspicion. “What I saw was the back of a guy who’s pissed off and just wants to crawl into a hidey-hole and mope around instead of talking about it.”

“That’s _ not_—”

“_Even though_ we all know it’s best to talk things out. Right? We can agree that ignoring your feelings isn’t manly at all, and it’s making you look a _little_ uncool right now?” 

Kakeru’s stare was goading. Yuki’s hands tensed at his sides as he glared back. 

He knew he was trapped — not by Kakeru’s leg, or by his eyes pinning him, but because if it were any other situation that made him frustrated with Kakeru, he would have already called him out on it. From stupid annoyances to larger grievances, he had always made the reasons behind his quick flashes of anger known. And it was because Kakeru insisted on it. It was because he insisted to understand, to do better the next time. Even when he was wrapped up in his own temper, it was always Kakeru to extend the branch to let things settle.

Now, though, he held back his words in a vise. To say _I saw you kiss someone else_ would lead to _and it made me angry_. To admit it made him angry would lead to _I don’t want you to kiss anyone else,_ which would lead to _I want you to be mine,_ and _I want to be yours._ At which point everything would spiral down to two points, free-falling and in parallel until they met their timely, crashing end: _I think I might like you too much_ and _I’m sorry I’m like this._

To even start with that single admission, he risked losing him. To open up under the guise of him wanting to understand, only to end up with him ultimately pulling away, maybe for good, maybe forever, wasn’t something he could handle. 

He would sooner swallow his pride and squash his feelings, unsure and unrequited, than risk losing him.

“I can’t tell you,” Yuki said. His voice quieted around the words. “I’m sorry, I just — I don’t want to talk about it.”

He looked away. Kakeru’s leg, however, didn’t move, and rather than relenting, he let out a lengthy sigh.

“Always so serious, Yun-Yun. I bet it’s not even that big a deal.”

Yuki chewed the inside of his lip. He couldn’t even grace him with the answer that it was.

“How about this,” Kakeru said, pulling out his phone to squint at the time, “it’s kind of late, so I’ll get out of your hair for the night. I _ guess _ I can forgive you enough to grant you this single night of respite from my relentless pursuit for knowledge, in which my sole reason for living is to finally crack the case of the great almighty Yuki Sohma.” He dropped his voice to a coarse, gravelly impersonation as he finished, hand to heart, “And then my, Agent 2402’s, mission will be complete.”

He reached out and playfully pinched Yuki’s chin. Though Yuki shook his head from his fingers and brought himself to roll his eyes, Kakeru gave a little laugh, cracking the persona.

“Besides,” he continued, voice peaking back to normal, “princesses need their beauty rest and all that, and _you_ look like you’ve aged twenty years in the last half hour.”

Finally, he brought his leg back down to the ground, standing straight again. Yuki started to form a rebuttal, but before the words could take shape, Kakeru took his hand in his and pulled him a step closer.

“Ah, don’t fight it — when you get in, look in the mirror and see for yourself.” 

Yuki would have glowered if he weren’t suddenly aware of how close, yet again, he was to him. Though the mischief had returned, making his dark eyes bright despite the harsh shadows created from the light above his door, he recognized the gentle heaviness that swam under the surface. While his mind had sobered, his body was still working through the effects of the party. 

With a trailing look down, Yuki noticed, up close, that Kakeru’s bottom lip was somewhat chapped. A small spot in the middle, more worn and pink than the rest of his pale mouth. The color before a bruise. Freshly aggravated.

_ Oh. Not chapped_, he quickly realized, bringing himself back to look at his eyes. _ Bitten. _

“Well,” Kakeru sighed, voice airy, soft as he conceded, “night, Yun.”

As he leaned in, Yuki thought again of the scene in the window. Kakeru leaning in, just as he was now, pressing a kiss into a stranger. Deepening it, as though that person were familiar. A scene open and public that he felt he wasn’t meant to witness, even by accident. As though he had spied on a part of Kakeru’s private life that even he had little to no access to. A secret shared with a crowded room. Something that was, in fact, not a secret at all.

A flash of fury, quickly followed by shame, plunged into Yuki’s blood, and heated, he pulled his hand out of Kakeru’s grasp and abruptly stepped back, leaning away from that now unfamiliar mouth.

Kakeru’s lidded eyes bounced open again at the movement. He blinked, then raised a brow at Yuki, who stood leaned back and stammering.

“Um,” he managed.

“Huh? What’s wrong?”

“I… Uh.”

_ Fuck. _

He hadn’t meant to avoid the kiss. He knew it would happen, in some form or another, the moment he noticed Kakeru standing in front of his door. And he knew that to accept it, despite it being marred, was the easy way out — it would raise no suspicions, no further questioning. He would have left it chaste and light, and in the moment, it would have been enough to sate the other man. 

Now, though, he stood stammering around a mistake he hadn’t planned for. And now Kakeru had another puzzle to undo, squinting past his bewilderment as he tried to fit the pieces.

“What was that about?” he asked. “Does my breath reek?” 

He brought his palm up to his mouth and breathed hot into it, before giving it a sniff. He hummed and tilted his head from side to side. 

“Nah, you’ve had worse. Unless your standards are suddenly raising, which, hello, give me a notice next time or something.”

Yuki stared at him. He realized, then, that he could safely retreat into his apartment. He would just need to close and lock the door fast enough. And he knew Kakeru didn’t have the house key on him, because if he did, he would have been waiting for Yuki inside when he arrived.

“Or, _ ooh_, did you get an infection?” Kakeru continued. “Ew, wait, no, you kissed me yesterday, which means… Oh, Yun-Yun, did you give me _ herpes? _”

Yuki turned to face the door as he rambled. He felt conflicted with the annoyance that Kakeru seemed oblivious to it all, but it was better that he wore himself out on guessing stupid possibilities than reaching the truth. As long as he kept talking nonsense, the better off they both were.

When he clasped his hand around the handle, Kakeru hummed again in thought. In his peripherals, Yuki watched him raise a hand to his mouth to tap it.

“Or is it— _ ow. _ What the…”

Yuki froze. He watched as Kakeru pinched and prodded his lip, hissing slightly when he found exactly where it stung, and, hurried, he pushed down on the handle.

“Goodnight, Kakeru—”

“Wait a minute.” Kakeru paused, and, stupidly, Yuki waited for him, feeling his hand begin to tremble. “_Oh__... _Oh! I see!"

Dread filled Yuki’s chest at his excited tone. The cool metal of the handle warmed as his palm grew clammy. He saw Kakeru reach for him and, when he felt his hand pressing against the inside of his shoulder, trying to turn him to face him again, he shook him off.

“Yuki,” he said, undeterred, “wait, is it because I kissed—”

_ Don’t say it, _he thought, clenching his jaw tight before snapping, “Shut up.”

The response only made Kakeru gasp. “It _ is_. And you’re jealous!”

“I’m—”

“Is that why you’ve been so mad at me this whole time?” He let out a disbelieving laugh, which only served to irritate Yuki further. "Wow, Yun, I’m a little flattered, you know! Getting jealous over me, that’s kind of—”

“Kakeru, shut _up_.”

Kakeru’s shoulders perked a little, and he shut his mouth. It wasn’t Yuki’s words that quieted him, but rather the side of his fist making a singular, loud _bang_ against the door. 

Yuki was beginning to panic. He could feel it riding up in his chest, making his heart erratic. Though he forced himself to breathe steady, his lip wobbled. 

“Yuki—” Kakeru tried.

“Shut up,” he said again, quieter.

Further down the balcony, the air was cut by the abrupt _ click _ of a door unlocking. Yuki raised his eyes past Kakeru to his neighbor’s door and swallowed, tensing as the handle turned and the door began to ease open.

“Uh-oh,” Kakeru muttered.

Before his neighbor’s face could peer out and scold them, Yuki pushed down on the handle of his door and, grabbing Kakeru’s wrist, pulled him inside behind his heels. He felt Kakeru stumble behind him over the threshold, but he paid it no mind; as he kicked the door closed, he shoved Kakeru against it, pinning him by his shoulders. 

“_Ouch_,” he groaned. Though they were now shrouded in darkness, Yuki still imagined the way he was frowning, the way his brows pinched with the sudden ache. “The fuck, dude.”

Yuki's heartbeat thrummed heavy in his neck and down his arms. In the dark, he gave himself permission to let his face fall with frustration, let it twist with upset. Though he tried to gulp down a steadying breath, it only reached him halfway.

After a few more muttered curses, Kakeru went quiet. If it weren’t for his heart beating fast under Yuki’s hand, now wet with the rain still beaded on his jacket, he would have supposed this whole thing was a horrible hallucination.

Finally, Yuki spoke. His voice was weighted with his temper, expansive in the small entryway.

“Fine, I’m angry. Alright? I’m _pissed._ I didn't… I told you not to follow me home. I didn't want you to even know I _left._ It would have been better if I… If you just stayed there, and let me go. It would have been easier, but instead, you… _you__..._”

He knew he was skirting. Even though the words fell from him, a forest fire uncontained and dangerous as it breached his mouth, they weren’t the words that deserved his anger. Kakeru daring to worry for him, trying to reach him — _he_ didn’t deserve his anger, either.

Rather, the fault laid on him. Sinking down his spine and wrapping over his stomach tenfold, gripping him with the exact words he wanted to say. Terrible words, like “I was jealous,” and “I’m sorry I’m possessive,” and “I think I actually might really like…” 

“I don't want to talk about it,” he rushed. He shook his head hard. “I’m serious. Just forget about it."

A pause. Kakeru fidgeted under the weight of his hands, and as he shifted to cross his arms, the nylon of his jacket scratched the air. He clicked his tongue.

"That's a pretty tall order to ask for, you know."

Yuki swallowed. "I know." 

"Okay," he said, slow, "so then you can't get mad at me when I ask why you're all riled up because I kissed someone."

Yuki gripped at Kakeru's jacket, but bit his lips shut. Kakeru fell quiet, too, for a moment, before sighing at the non-answer.

"Why are you so angry about it?" he pressed. When Yuki only delivered silence again, he asked, "Seriously, why are you so freaked out that you can't talk about it?"

“Because it’s…” Yuki huffed, and he heard his panic change its sound into something strained. “I…”

Kakeru’s hands suddenly came down heavy on Yuki’s shoulders in return. With a tired groan, he shook him.

“Yun-Yun, come on,” he complained. “I know you like to be stingy sometimes, but this is kind of ridiculous.”

Though Kakeru couldn’t see, Yuki glared at him as his defenses lit up. His arms went stiff.

“Is it so ridiculous that I don’t want to talk to you about something?”

“Uh, yes!” Kakeru’s voice raised, suddenly, and Yuki felt the dark catch on it. “You’re not saying you _won’t_ talk, you’re saying you _can’t._ You’re acting like I’m gonna, I don’t know, _disown_ you or something, or that this is some big horrible, world-ending _thing._ I know you’re mad at me, and I know it’s because I went and kissed some stranger, but—” 

He stammered over some nonsense sounds, falling into frustration as he gripped at Yuki’s shoulders. Yuki’s brows pinched as Kakeru stumbled into his next words.

“What, is it because… I mean, this thing we have going on, did something…”

_ Change_, Yuki knew, was the word he was searching for. He jostled Kakeru again by his shoulders, not enough to hurt, but enough to quiet him before he could say it.

“I told you,” he said, voice low, “Just forget about it.”

“_No._”

“Kakeru…”

Kakeru’s hands were deft as they left Yuki’s shoulders to instead find his neck. His palms laid into each side, his thumbs pressed harsh against his crooks of his jaw. Yuki could feel his pulse thudding against his hands as he held his head in such a way that, even though it was dark, he was forced to face his eyes.

“Just tell me: were you jealous?” he asked. It made Yuki want to pull away, but his hold kept him stationary. “That’s all I want to know.”

“I’m not—”

“Just, yes or no.” 

“I’m not angry at _ you, _ ” Yuki forced. “_That’s _ all you need to know.”

Kakeru faltered.

“That doesn’t answer… What do you mean, you’re not angry at me? You said—”

“I just said I was angry. I didn’t say it was because of you.”

Kakeru tapped at Yuki’s jaw with a thumb, quieting in thought.

“Well… shit, if you’re not angry at me, then who are you angry at? Her?”

_ Her_, Yuki thought. Even the way Kakeru avoided a name made him wonder if he knew the girl at all.

“Not her,” Yuki said. 

“Then who? Who else could you possibly be mad at?” 

Yuki gaped a moment, and he almost felt the words escape him all at once. He found himself so far past the point of comfort in this conversation, it almost seemed useless to hold back at all. A swimmer treading and lost at sea, limbs ready to give. But, those chains came up to his tongue again, and his shame boiled hot in his stomach. 

_ I don’t want to talk about this_, he thought, and despite his weariness, it came to him heavy and furious. _ I don’t want to fucking talk about this_.

It was petty — _ childish, _ he knew, to redirect his anger again to Kakeru’s prying. But he couldn’t handle it. The way Kakeru knew but didn’t know. The way he asked stupid, innocent questions alongside ones that seemed to probe under his skin with deliberate fingers. The way that Yuki knew, in his heart of hearts, that if he were to open and confess the stupid, ugly truth of the matter, he would be inviting nothing but the high chance of Kakeru’s absence.

So, he didn’t talk.

He knew he shoved too cruelly against Kakeru’s shoulders when he felt the knockback of his bones hitting the door, and the way his collarbones pressed staunch into his palms. He didn’t so much hear Kakeru grunt as he did feel it, as the noise came up from deep behind his ribs. The hold on his face dropped, and Kakeru hissed in a breath.

“_Fuck,_” he huffed. “Jesus. You know, you really aren’t any fun when you’re pissed.”

Before he could restrain the words, Yuki bit back, “Well, _ you’re _ not any fun when you’re trying to kiss strangers.”

A silence fell between them. Yuki felt his sternum grow hot as he realized what, exactly, he had said; he wanted to pull on the rope that was now spilling immature taunts from his mouth, but that, too, had escaped his reach, along with his hold on this whole conversation.

Kakeru sputtered a laugh.

“Wow. To be fair,” he said, a small lilt making his voice too easy, too devious, “she wasn’t a _ complete _ stranger. And I didn’t ‘try’ to kiss her — I _ did._” 

Yuki jostled him against the door again, scowling when Kakeru’s gasp was followed by another little laugh, a choked noise that grated Yuki’s already agitated nerves. 

“Fuck you,” he spat.

“Hey, now, don’t make empty promises.”

Yes, the easy mocking grated on him. But what irritated him more was the sudden, unwelcome warmth pooling in his belly. 

It coiled in him. It wasn’t just the heated cord of his anger, or the spool of shame he desperately tried to bury — it was something else, edging on him in creeping motions.

He felt it pang in him when Kakeru laughed again, the noise hidden under a curse.

A potent, delicate thread of _want._ Twining itself into a thick braid throughout his system, rapidly multiplying its own weight. 

“You know,” Yuki muttered, brows still pinched despite the sensation tugging low in his stomach, “for someone who complains when I get angry, you’re awfully good at getting me there.”

He could hear the lopsided grin infecting Kakeru’s voice. “I never said I hated it. You just get so serious. And hella moody.” 

Under his hands, Kakeru’s shoulders shifted, and, after a few empty pads against the wall, the light above the genkan flickered on. They squinted at each other through the blanched room as their eyes adjusted, but through his lashes, Yuki could see that, yes, Kakeru was grinning, and it was more infuriating that he wanted to admit.

Once Yuki was able to see again, though, he faltered at the mischievous look that crinkled Kakeru’s gaze.

And, belated, Kakeru said, “It’s cute.”

That did it in for him.

Yuki wasn’t sure what it was that did it, exactly. If it was just from being provoked by his simple condescension. If it was from seeing that alien blotch on his lip again as he spoke, something in him wishing to obscure it from sight and memory with his own scathing marks. Or if it was something more base, something ancient and through with waiting for a resolution. Whatever it was, as he descended onto that mouth, he could only think of two things: how he wanted the hurt in him to be gone, and how brutally he wanted it to be torn from him.

The way he kissed him wasn’t deliberate, or easy, or soft. There was none of the languid pretense that they had practiced in the past weeks, weekends of lazy smoking and chaste kisses, of bad movies and slow tongues along lips asking for permission. Nothing about this was asking. It was harsh. Severe as he caught his lip between his teeth, feeling the hissing intake of breath as Kakeru tensed, followed by the shaky exhale that spilled over his skin.

Kakeru’s hands landed on his forearms, gripping as he pulled away from the bite only to catch Yuki’s mouth in return, just as vicious, just as needy. No, nothing about this was asking; something within Yuki knew they had passed that point the moment they stumbled over the threshold. 

As a sting began to form on his lip, Yuki started to wonder if he had kissed _ her _ like this, too, with such conviction — until Kakeru forced the thought out of him with a shift of his mouth, parting his lips to press his tongue heavy against his. The taste of the party long gone, the taste, now, just purely Kakeru. 

Yuki was almost embarrassed at the moan that left him, throaty and pathetic, as he laid it into the other man’s mouth.

He finally relented his pinning hold against Kakeru’s shoulders, moving his hands from bunching in his jacket to instead splay along his jaw and neck. Thumbs pressing into cheekbones damp with humidity, still warm from the last dregs of the party eking from his skin. Finding his lip again and giving it a biting suck, eliciting a small noise from Kakeru that buzzed against his skin.

Still. He thought of the stupid party.

He thought again of spotting him through the window, shoulders hunched to accommodate the stranger’s height. The tilt of his head to kiss her more thorough. The way her hand slid over his shoulder, and how his arms, stilled only by the drinks occupying his hands, seemed to want to move around her. 

He hated it. He thought as much when he felt a snarl leave him, snaking a hand to Kakeru’s hair. When he tugged at it, he received a low whine pressed against his tongue and teeth that threatened to weaken his knees. 

_ I want to take you_. The thought fell over him in desperate waves as Kakeru reached a hand to trap him by the nape of his neck in turn. _ I want you to take me. _

Want pulsed under his skin. It sent a pang down his spine that made him pull away and breathe in harsh, his lips wet and bare in the sudden absence. Under his hand, he could feel the dizzied pace of Kakeru’s pulse, and he wondered, if he were to meet his eyes, if they would be dark and hazy, pupils blown out beneath the mellow veil of liquor and smoke. If he could meet those eyes, if they would say _I’ll take you_ and _take me, too._

He didn’t look. He pressed again into that mouth as Kakeru gasped from difficult breaths, and shifted forward to pin his chest under his. Within that movement came his knee edging against the inside the other’s, and there in that opening, with a hissing breath against his lip, and a shift of footing that granted silent permission, their hips brushed. 

He shivered. Touching him in a way that broke their otherwise unspoken rule, that consistent and careful distance put between them, made him feel like the floor were about drop from under him. Something between excitement and dread weighted his stomach at the breaching of their careful trust; it had been built on a designed closeness, on the practiced swallow of kisses and spit and the slow poison of each others exhales, and it had always left the rest of their bodies vacant. In that trust was the silent and tangible barrier that had originally been built as a comfort, a means to say _ I won’t go there if you won’t_. 

And, at some point, that barrier had started grate against Yuki. He had become an exposed nerve twinging at the absence of that touch, provoked by the simple void made by bent knees and outwardly swept spines. A constant hunger for more, for everything.

Still, he wondered in short panic that he had overstepped, overcome by the spark of possession that had slipped from his hands. Before he could step that half-step back, though, a gesture to say _ that was an accident, think nothing of it, _ Kakeru peeled his lower back from the door and pressed in return, making the contact real. He made Yuki’s scalp sting from a needing grip in his hair, and, sending another whine into the hollow of his mouth, made his arousal known.

Yuki felt him, hard against his thigh. 

And Yuki knew, too, that he was feeling much the same from him.

He drew away his mouth to gasp as Kakeru’s hip pressed into him in turn. He could feel, now, how hard he had gotten, feeling the small discomfort of being trapped by his pants become more pronounced. Feeling somewhat exposed, embarrassed that Kakeru could feel him, while at the same time feeling a stark relief at beng touched. A pool of intoxication swimming in his belly at being felt, and felt by _ him_.

“Damn,” Kakeru rasped. With a small _ thud_, he tilted his head back to sit it against the door, and as Yuki was met with the point of his chin, he at last ventured a look up to meet his eyes, so carefully avoided. 

They were screwed shut. 

Against him, he felt Kakeru twitch.

“Kakeru,” he breathed, but no words followed. He swallowed, searching for something to keep the quiet from descending on them. “I—”

“Your room.”

“Huh?”

Kakeru peered an eye open. Yuki watched the pupil constrict to the light.

“We should move to your room,” he said, somewhat breathless.

“Oh.” With another shaky swallow, Yuki nodded. “Right.”

They stared at each other a moment. As Kakeru lifted his head from the door, shifting under him minutely, Yuki realized that he had to move first. 

Parting was strange. There was that absence again as he stepped away, hands leaving Kakeru’s hair and skin, Kakeru shifting away his hands and leg from him once he was given the room. As Yuki turned to toe off his shoes, he saw just how noticeable the swell had become, and a heat laid itself over his neck.

Embarrassment at last began to rear in him as he heard Kakeru struggle behind him, trying to kick his sneakers off without untying them.

He stepped into the dark of his apartment without waiting. 

Though the walk to his bedroom was short, the air was strange. His eyes almost struggled to focus too far ahead of him, brain buzzing as his legs carried him. That base instinct stringing him along, despite a hesitation curling in the back of his brain that tried to bring him to a halt.

He waded through the mess of his room on pure muscle memory. Back to the entrance, he turned on the bedside lamp.

Behind him, he heard Kakeru enter the apartment, footsteps padding slow. 

Something in the atmosphere had shifted, he realized, as he felt his nerves go alight. An idea bore into him that, if he were to turn and face him, something would change — but, what this change was, he couldn’t fathom. Vague and nebulous as a distant star reaching supernova. The seeping scent of ozone before a storm. The silence of striking a tripwire.

His arms prickled. 

Behind him, Kakeru made his presence known with the scratching shift of his jacket. 

“Yuki,” he said. 

Just hearing his name made a rush of need brighten his chest. Hearing it so far, though, he knew Kakeru had hardly passed his bedroom door.

“Mm?”

An intake of breath, cut short as Kakeru failed to speak. Then, the slow sound of entering, nearing Yuki with the gentle creak of flooring. At his sides, Yuki’s hands began to quake. 

_ I want this_, he thought, flooded with the words, _ Don’t be selfish. _

By the time Kakeru neared, close enough to press his mouth against the slope of his shoulder, the air had become taut. 

Kakeru’s voice mellowed as he asked, “Is this okay?”

Yuki closed his eyes.

Is _this okay?_

Maybe it was that he realized, upon entering his room, seeing his bed, that he understood what, exactly, they had intended to do. The heady charge of instinct had veiled him, giving him an alternate route: he didn’t have to curl up and purge himself of his shame and guilt, alone in his apartment, thinking of the boy he so wanted and wanted too much. He didn’t have to agonize and overthink things. He would hardly have to think at all.

It was tempting. And yet, an anxiety webbed in him just thinking about it.

“I don’t know,” he said. His voice wavered with honesty, and he felt the want ebb from him, slow and uncertain. “I’m not sure.”

Kakeru breathed a small murmur against his skin. He gave the spot another chaste kiss before pulling away.

“That’s okay,” he said. “We can just do what we usually do. No biggie.”

Yuki nodded, the movement slight, but his head racketed. _ We’ve already gone that far, _ he thought. _ Who’s to say that we can avoid it again? _

There was a deliberate torture in knowing, now, exactly what he wanted. Knowing that Kakeru wanted something, too, but leaving him unsure of its precise nature. The mystery of how much he wanted him in return, if he wanted Yuki like Yuki wanted him. That boundary erased and made secret.

Kakeru’s hands settled light on the curve of his elbows. With the barest nudge, he urged Yuki to face him.

The moment Yuki reached his eyes, a thought settled in him, weighty and stark: _ I’m not sure how much longer I can do this. _

“Kakeru,” he said, and at the questioning perk of his dark brows, Yuki felt his voice fade. He swallowed, and forced himself through his next words. “I think I like you.”

There was a beat as Kakeru stared at him. Within that moment, Yuki strangled the panic that told him to run. He held his breath, even as a half-smile crept onto his friend’s face.

“Okay?” The word left him amused, awkward as it sat between them. “I mean, I like you too, Yun-Yun. We’ve been best friends for like, ever. I thought you knew that.”

Yuki drew in a tempering breath. He tried not to let _ best friends _ barb him. 

“No,” he said. It left him as a whisper. “Not like that.”

Kakeru paused. Then, he gaped, brows rising high. 

“_Oh._”

“It’s fine if you don’t feel the same way,” Yuki rushed, drawing his gaze to their feet as he feared what he would see in those dark eyes. A trail of nausea snaked in him. “I won’t… I won’t force it. I don’t expect anything from it. But then… I don’t think we can do this anymore. Any of it.”

The moment the words left him, Yuki became aware of the tell-tale pinch in his eyes. He sucked his inner cheek between his teeth, quelling the tremble in his jaw and forcing him into silence. He raised a hand to his chest, feeling the tightness and the burn, before bringing it up to keep the wetness from slipping past his lashes. 

The quiet seemed to drag. Yuki swallowed the apology that bled in him as he waited for Kakeru to speak.

When he did, his voice, though gentle in the night, seemed unfazed.

“Huh. Yeah, I can see why you didn’t want to tell me.”

Yuki’s shoulders hunched. He let go of his hold on himself, starting, “I’m—”

“But, _yeesh_, did you have to throw me against the door over it? That fuckin’ hurt.” The jacket shifted again as Kakeru seemed to roll his shoulders, grunting. “Man, you might have to be at my bedside for the next few days while I recover. Oh—”

There was, suddenly, the sound of Kakeru slapping a fist into his palm with a new conviction. "_Nurse_ Yuki. Now _that_ has a certain ring to it. Kind of a step down from princess, but I’m sure that big-ass ego of yours will live.”

Yuki blinked. He felt a tear slide down the side of his nose, but he paid it little mind as he drew his hand away to look up. 

“What…” He stammered, seeing just how unperturbed he was. “Kakeru, what are you _ talking _ about?”

“I dunno, that you’re still stronger than you look? And that you’re probably gonna break my bones one day and have to tend to me like I’m some solider dragged in from the throes of war?”

“No, I mean…” 

His head spun, unsure of where, exactly, the conversation was being dragged to. Was he just being _ him_, choosing some nondescript path in the spiderweb of his brain as usual, ignoring the weight in the room? Or was he deliberately avoiding it, hoping to trap Yuki and quiet the situation so he didn’t have to deal with it? 

Was he being himself, or was he being cruel? 

He was grounded as Kakeru hummed a little laugh. Easy, as though slipping down to a second skin. Wearing a smile weighted with something that Yuki couldn’t perceive, and could only describe as melancholic.

“Yeah,” he said, “I know what you mean.”

Yuki’s brows furrowed. Kakeru then drew his eyes down, and Yuki felt those fingers brush against his, airy against the numbness that had formed.

“What if I were to say,” he said, curling his pinky around Yuki’s index finger, “that I understand how you feel?”

Yuki’s heart jolted. 

“What do you mean?” 

“Aw, do I have to spell it out for you, Yun? I thought you were good at lit.”

Yuki’s hand twitched under the small hold. He could hear, under the tease, that Kakeru was pensive.

“Stop playing around,” he said. “Just tell me what you mean.”

“Oh, how the tables have—”

“_Kakeru._”

As Kakeru brought his stare back up to him, Yuki was well aware of the pressure forming thicker behind his eyes. He felt sick with some horrible cocktail of anticipation and dread. Dread that he was misunderstanding. Dread that he was being played a fool. 

And then, easy, too easy, Kakeru said, “I like you. I’ve liked you for a while.”

Just like that. 

Beneath the nausea, Yuki felt his chest brighten again, heart pounding hard at the confirmation. But, it didn’t fall onto him sweet; there was something sour to it. Ominous. A certain brand of humiliation and confusion. Questions branching out until he was ensnared by them, all unanswered, all unknown. He could feel the difficult constriction as he tried to take a calm breath in, failing as he exhaled on a shudder.

It was all that he wished to hear, and yet, it gave Yuki no relief.

“You… Then why didn’t you say anything?” he asked. Kakeru shrugged.

“Same reason why you didn’t tell me, I’m guessing. I didn’t want to ruin anything.” He tapped his toes behind him, kicking against the carpet in a fidget. “We seemed to be doing okay, you know? Well, until you started getting all obvious.”

“Obvious?”

“About the fact that you, you know, ‘like me’ like me.”

Yuki shook his head. He reached a hand up to rub his eye as it threatened to spill. The urge to keel over and vomit was becoming more and more like a viable response.

“That doesn’t make sense. If it was so obvious, then why didn’t you say something?”

“That would have been pretty presumptuous of me, you know. Just because I thought it was obvious doesn’t mean I would have been right.”

_ As if that’s ever stopped you before_, Yuki thought bitterly, but conceded to his frustration. He knew he was right. 

“So then…” he pressed, “If you… _ like _ me, then why did you kiss her?”

“Ah. Mm.” 

Kakeru sighed short through his nose. His eyes wandered to settle on a spot on the ceiling. Wandering, Yuki realized, as he became somewhat nervous.

“Call it burying the hatchet, I guess. I figured that if I could just, I dunno, come to terms with the fact that things probably weren’t going to go much farther with us, then I could move on.”

Yuki brought his hand to his opposite arm as a means of self-comfort. Kakeru continued holding his finger, wrapped in his own.

“And did it work?” Yuki asked.

“As it turns out, not really. Ah, although… is it in bad taste to say she was kind of a good kisser?” 

Yuki only raised his brows at him. Kakeru looked at him again, smile sheepish as he waved his free hand in an attempt to dispel his words.

“Never mind,” he said. “Just forget I said that. It’s just… You matter a lot to me, you know. It’s sappy, but I felt like if I would just have to duke it out with my own feelings, or if we were just gonna be in a stalemate over it, then… so be it, yeah? Maybe it would be shitty and uncomfortable, but at least I wouldn’t have lost you over it. Not like if I had told you and ruined our whole thing.”

Yuki frowned. 

“What makes you think I would have left you if you told me? Even if I didn’t…”

Kakeru stopped him with a stare, and he realized how easily the question could be volleyed back to him. Lacking a response, they stood in silence for a time, eyes wandering back over to walls and down to feet. 

“...Guess it’s a good thing you’re braver than me, huh?” Kakeru asked.

“I’m not braver than you.”

“You literally confessed to me. I wasn’t about to do the same.”

“I only did it because I think my heart would have stopped if I didn’t.”

“Still,” Kakeru said, “I was being kind of a dumb coward. But it was…”

A bump formed beneath his upper lip as he ran his tongue over his teeth, brows furrowed. 

“Scary?” Yuki offered. Kakeru mulled the word over, tilting his head from side to side until his brows perked in realization.

“Huh. Yeah, I guess that’s the word for it.”

Yuki nodded. Finally, as he let out a slow breath, he felt some of the sourness ease from his stomach. With it, though, came a lump in his throat, and a question burning a hole in his temple.

“Are we okay, then?” he asked.

“Depends. Are you gonna apologize for my poor, bruised shoulder?” 

“Hm…” Yuki paused in mock thought, watching Kakeru’s face fall into a pout before saying, “I guess I can apologize for that. You didn’t really deserve it.”

“Damn right I didn’t. But,” Kakeru said, squeezing the finger with his pinky, “I guess I can forgive you.”

A tiny laugh left Yuki. But, as he stooped his head to direct it to the floor, he felt the small pressure finally release behind his sinuses. He raised his hand again to his face, pressing the back of it against his nose, and felt that little smile wobble away.

The ugliness untangled from him, and sought out safe passage.

He sniffed wet against the back of his fingers. With a final squeeze, Kakeru left his hand, bringing a small touch to the crown of his head. 

“Don’t cry,” he said, laughing light as he moved his hands to hold his face, both palms pressed to the line of his shaking jaw. “Geez, you don’t have to cry.” 

Yuki cried. He didn’t want to. He winced at the sharp inhales, and swallowed back the strangled noises that crawled up to the back of his throat. The release was uncomfortable, as all those horrible thoughts and feelings, pent up so deep in him, swept over his tongue on the way out. Stinging, as though giving him a final, embittered farewell. 

He didn’t want to cry, but he did. He let the cooled touch of Kakeru’s fingers drain him of the heat that had panged him and burned him. He let him swipe his thumbs over his wet cheekbones and under-eyes, and, after a moment, let him nudge his head back up to look at him level, getting his attention with the barest murmur of his name. 

Maybe it was just the blurred vision, but Kakeru’s eyes looked warm. 

He felt that warmth more-so as Kakeru laid a soft kiss against his still-quivering mouth. It was familiar, and not. Something slow, but not hazy. Careful, but not lusting. It existed as an honest comfort, and nothing more. 

When he pulled away, Yuki reached up to clear his eyes. Tears continued to fall, but the heaviness had been drained from his chest. There, he only felt his heart at last beginning to calm, as he was left otherwise vacant. 

Kakeru slid his hands from his face and wiped them on his jeans. 

“You good?” he asked.

Yuki mumbled an affirmative. Sniffing again, though, prompted Kakeru to leave his side for a moment, scouting out the box of tissues and returning with a small bundle.

“Here,” he said, “you’re all snotty.”

Yuki took them, rolling his eyes. They felt tired. “Thanks,” he muttered. 

As he fixed himself, swiping his eyes and blowing his nose, he wondered how blotchy his face had become — how it may have gone red from angered shame, down to a tired pink. He didn’t look, though. Kakeru seemed undeterred by it, anyway, hands in pockets as he casually kicked a balled-up sock between his feet.

The apartment seemed especially muted, now, with his thoughts numbed and dispelled. The air had become smooth and still; all of those heightened senses of before that had brimmed in him all too much, crashed into nothing. It would have been sweet, if it didn’t make him feel spent. 

Still, though, a thought struck him. And it struck him again, and again, not in his voice, but Kakeru’s.

_ I like you. _

_ I’ve liked you for a while. _

Even in the midst of his emotions and thoughts and hormones peaking and burning in what seemed to be too little time to leave him functioning, something remained quite awake in him. Low in his stomach, that little spire of kindling burnt at the edges.

He looked at Kakeru, who had taken to wandering around the room, looking for things to snoop into and finding nothing new. He noticed, when he turned, how exactly his jacket hung from his shoulders. How normal his hands had become, as he had grown into them. How he still had a sort of languid energy that flickered to the surface at times, when left alone to his own devices. 

_ I like you. _

_ I’ve liked you for a while. _

“Kakeru.”

“Hm?” 

As he turned to look over his shoulder, Yuki was left wondering, not for the first time, when he had changed.

Rather than call him back, Yuki stepped over to him instead. When he reached him, now turned around, he raised his hands to brush his forearms. Timid, not unlike the first time, sitting cross-legged on the bed and sharing an awkward first kiss. Like he were new to the world, as if they were starting all over again.

Kakeru mirrored the movement, sliding his hands down to hold Yuki’s fingers in his palms. 

When Yuki kissed him, lip covering the spot that barely begun to speckle purple, he didn’t think of the party, or the girl in the window. He didn’t feel the ache of jealousy, or the deep pit of self-loathing. 

He felt the lines of Kakeru’s hands against his fingertips and thought of the swell of the lip under his. The way it moved when he said, _ I like you__. _

How it moved now, slow as it parted in a sedate inhale, allowing Yuki to kiss him more completely. 

He deepened it slowly, feeling the little squeeze against his fingers as Kakeru’s tongue met his. An imperfect patience; the gentle push of wanting more, but surrendering as he let Yuki dictate the pace. Yuki slid a hand from his grip and brought it up to hold the nape of his neck. As his fingers fell into the depression of his atlas, he grasped him lightly, giving a silent permission for him to go further.

_ Please, _ he thought, _ I want this. _

Kakeru exhaled heavy through his nose as he pressed into his mouth with a familiar fullness. The shift in force burgeoned the spark in Yuki’s abdomen, and a noise slipped from him as Kakeru’s freed fingers skirted his side. He felt him let go of his other hand, and there, Kakeru gripped his waist with a force that, though it wouldn’t budge Yuki alone, spilled need. 

It was Kakeru, this time, who stepped in closer to bridge the gap. More careful than Yuki had been, fingers curled into his shirt, wanting, but not severe.

Yuki pulled away from the kiss to breathe sharp, and felt Kakeru do likewise, cooling the wetness on his lip. This wasn’t as it was before, where he had grown hard from something dominant and bordering violent. Now, he felt the pangs of that want build him up slower, feeling himself thud between his own leg and Kakeru’s hip pressed against him. 

“Fuck,” he hissed. 

Kakeru leaned to kiss the soft spot beneath his jaw, encouraging Yuki to expose his neck. He breathed hot onto his skin before catching the spot with his teeth. Lower, his thumbs brushed over his ribs. It was almost taunting, the way he tried to calm him as he bruised him, and eased him as he pressed deliberate and coaxing.

The way he pressed into him made Yuki dizzy. It also made him step back, without having anything to lean against, and it caused Kakeru to both tighten his grip and draw his mouth away. He looked at him.

Yuki was almost blindsided by the flush spread over his cheeks.

“Um,” he said, “sorry, I guess I—”

Kakeru, however, merely pushed into him again, controlling his backward stumble with the grip on his waist. It startled him for a moment, until he felt the back of his knees hit the edge of his bed.

“I was gonna say,” Kakeru said, his hold loosening as Yuki lowered and sat, “we have your whole-ass bed to our disposal.”

Yuki felt his nerves ignite. As he sat back on his hands, he watched Kakeru standing above him, shifting out of his jacket and letting it fall. He passed a hand through his dark hair, squinting as some of the strands, too long, fell back into his eyes. 

He watched Kakeru kneel a knee into the space on the bed between his legs. And as he loomed over him, Yuki felt himself throb. 

Kakeru looked down at him. With a wandering eye, Yuki looked lower, quick to find the pronounced ridge in his jeans. 

“Um,” Kakeru started, and Yuki’s gaze snapped back to him. “This is okay, right?”

Yuki almost wanted to laugh, despite recognizing the acute anxiety making his stomach turn. As if he had _ any _ fucking idea. 

“I think so,” he said.

“Well, just… you know, tell me if I need to stop.”

The little furrow in his brow as he said it, indicating his own nerves, was a little endearing. Yuki thought so as he brought a hand forward to lay it on his knee, smiling light as the other’s shoulders jumped at the contact. He was glad he didn’t notice the shake.

“Mhm,” he said. “And you tell me, too.”

Kakeru only managed a rushed nod. 

Yuki raised his hand again to the back of his neck, and he drew him down into a kiss. The nervous line of Kakeru’s mouth eased against him, and slowly, he leaned into him, forcing Yuki to recline until his back was flat against the bed. As Kakeru pressed his tongue to his, he felt the bed depress beneath his shoulders, before feeling Kakeru’s hand slide under him to cup his neck.

Feeling Kakeru’s presence hang over him — in truth, giving him only the barest of touches, straddling him in a way that only let their legs brush — made him both excited and agitated. Maybe it was because he was being so serious, deliberate in how he touched him, conscious of the fact that they were, again, treading unexplored waters. The way he slowed down could almost be called mature.

But, as Yuki shifted, bridging his lower back and meeting empty air in return, he found he didn’t want slow and careful. 

He wanted to be touched, goddamn it.

Kakeru parted from him when he rutted up again with a low grunt. He looked at him with some mild concern, until Yuki, staring back at him harsh, slid a hand to his shoulder, the other pressing flat and hot against his thigh. Pinpricks running down his arms as he brushed a teasing thumb up along the inseam of his jeans. 

Euphoria settled on his sternum as Kakeru pulsed his fingertips once into the nape of his neck, drawing in his lower lip between his teeth. Their eyes bored into one another’s, silently asking, silently pleading. 

Kakeru parted his mouth and took in a small breath. And, predicting he would ask, again, if this was okay, Yuki stilled the words from coming out as he shifted his hand just so, laying his hand over the swell of his erection.

His inhale came back out in a rush. His eyes pinched shut. 

“Oh, _fuck_.”

Yuki’s blood thudded thick. 

He brought Kakeru’s mouth down to his again, breathing down the moan laid into him as he palmed him through his jeans. Kakeru, now seemingly alight as he bit at Yuki’s lip, shifted his weight to one hand, the other leaving Yuki’s neck to instead slide down his ribs and stomach, settling at the hem of his shirt before reaching up again, now under.

Just the brush of his fingers hitting the skin above his hip made Yuki keen. And Yuki knew he had finally breached something in that rare, cautious demeanor when he felt the curl of a smirk move against his lips.

_ Touch me. _ Yuki’s thoughts paced rabid as Kakeru edged his shirt up further and grabbed his waist with a heavy hand. _ I like you, I like you, please touch me. _

When he gripped Kakeru harder, feeling the heady heat under his hand, Kakeru pulled away to bury his mouth against his neck. There, he groaned, muffled against his pulse point as he pressed his blunt nails into his skin.

“Yuki,” he whined. 

Again, Yuki tried to shift his hips up, aching again as his pants left him trapped and offering the barest friction. Even so, he found his own arm barring him as he reached for Kakeru, and he, too, gave a small whine. 

Kakeru’s hand, so close now to where he wanted it, but so far. 

He breathed a curse, and then another. With his hand still against Kakeru’s shoulder, he pushed against him, forcing him to rise and meet his eyes again. With the intent to tell him _ fuck__, _ and _ shit__, _ and _ if you don’t touch me right now, I’m going to lose it. _

Kakeru looked down at him. Pupils blown out, cheeks ruddy. 

He quickly found the words lost on him.

So, instead, he slid his hand away from his thigh, and away from his shoulder, to catch his belt loops with his fingers. He leaned up some as he tugged on them, urging Kakeru to sidle even closer, until he could let his fingers fall instead on the button and hem. 

The movement made Kakeru straighten. His thighs, pressed high against Yuki’s, quivered lightly. Yuki bit his lip as his fingers fumbled, incoherent under the sense of urgency hitting him square, and he bit back another frustrated noise that threatened to leave him. 

It was as he struggled that Kakeru’s hand at last drifted down and away from his side. Skirting his fingertips along his hip and leg, until, reaching beyond the window of Yuki’s outstretched arms, he at last pressed warm into his neglected arousal. Teasing, or maybe just curious, as he lifted his hand away a moment, only to bring it back to cup him fully.

Yuki’s hands stopped working at the button as a hiss rushed from him. His stomach lurched at the touch, at the heat of his palm pressing through the sturdy fabric. 

“Jesus,” Kakeru huffed. 

Yuki could only manage a shuddering nod. He sank back some, mind drawing a sudden blank as his head reclined back into the sheets. He conceded as his hands left Kakeru’s jeans entirely to instead come up and press into his face, where the flush refracted and made him feel borderline feverish. 

It was embarrassing how absolutely, completely overwhelming it was, just to feel him touch him.

Kakeru’s hand shifted over him, and he peeled his lower back from the bed to press into his palm. A groan left him, muffled by his hands. A singular recurring thought spiraled through him, down the base of his skull through his bones. It etched into his tendons and kept him from falling apart: _Take me._

It was too soon when Kakeru’s touch left him, and he almost complained until he felt the small tug of fingers on his waistband, and the slight release of him undoing his button and fly. He uncovered his face, and watched as Kakeru thumbed his hipbones, contemplative. 

“Kakeru,” he choked. 

Those dark eyes met him. 

That burning need — to be completely undone, to be made into something _other,_ in whatever capacity the word could mean in that moment — struck him again. 

Staggered, he pushed himself up from the bed onto his elbows, inching back until his legs were freed of Kakeru’s straddle. He shifted himself to kneel, and as he reached out again to Kakeru’s jeans, he brought himself close, close enough to feel the thick exhale on his cheek.

Kakeru made a questioning noise.

“You were taking too long,” Yuki muttered. 

“Mm. Sure you’re not just impatient?”

He undid the button and fly. Slipping his fingers past the waistband, feeling the elastic of his boxers, Yuki looked at him pointedly. 

“Of all the times to be careful,” he said, pushing down on his jeans until Kakeru relented and stood, finally letting them fall loose down his legs, “now’s really not one of them.”

Kakeru hummed. “And here I thought you _ liked _ careful. But...” He gave him a wandering eye, that odd little smile returning. “I guess you’re always full of surprises.” 

As he stepped out of pants, shaking them off of his ankles, Yuki watched as his boxers tented. A warmth spread over him at the sight, and his nerves battled fierce between the anxiety of once again coming nose-to-nose with the unknown, and the unmistakable want to touch him again. 

He looked away. He slid himself from the bed, too, to finally strip himself. Kicking off his pants into another questionable laundry pile, swallowing thick as his erection pressed comfortably into the looser fabric of his underwear.

As he reached up and undid the buttons of his shirt, he heard the soft creak of Kakeru sitting on the bed behind him. 

That anxiety made him shy, suddenly, at the thought of turning around to look at him again. It wasn’t that they had never seen each other stripped down before — locker rooms and sleepovers and the like had already given them at least that experience. But this was different.

He felt a little stupid thinking it, but it was different. 

Still, he turned to face him, and Kakeru wasted little time in reaching up to kiss him again. Rough as his tongue parted his lips, stinging as his hands fell to his hair and his skin. It took Yuki a moment to reciprocate, but when he did, he pressed into him, forcing the shyness out. Kakeru eased back, and Yuki crawled over top him.

Adjusting his straddle over his hips, he felt Kakeru, hard against his inner thigh. At the little moan that left him at the contact, he reached down and gripped him again, and relished in the thickened noise that left Kakeru’s throat. 

Except, the angle was strange. After an off-stroke, Kakeru stilled his hand, before reaching down past the elastic to adjust himself. 

“God,” he breathed. Yuki fixed his grip, hand pressed to the underside of his shaft, and he felt him shiver under him. “There.”

Yuki palmed him again. This time, Kakeru bucked his hips into his hand, panting a short curse before Yuki repeated the motion. 

Watching Kakeru try and fail to keep his eyes on his, his head pressing back into the bed as Yuki rubbed him off, the indecision of keeping his eyes lidded or intent, made Yuki hot. To be able to make him writhe under his hand like this, to make him want his touch, and need it — it surged something in him. That base reaction reappearing, something too animal to comprehend. 

He reached down, slipping his hand past his own waistband, too, to adjust himself, and squeezed Kakeru gently at feeling how hard he himself had gotten. Kakeru pressed his hips into him again, quickly rendering his brain prattling and pathetic. 

His hand left himself to settle above Kakeru’s shoulder, and he leaned over him, pressing a heavy kiss to his pulse. Under his exploring thumb, he could feel the slight wetness seeping through the fabric.

“Fuck,” Kakeru moaned. Yuki felt the rumble of his voice against his mouth. “Yuki…” 

Yuki bit at his skin. With one hand rising to grip Yuki’s shoulder, Kakeru snaked his arm between them, until he found and cupped him again. His fingertips pressed delicate, deliberate, into the thinner flesh at the base, and he released a pleased sigh as Yuki drew in sharp.

Yuki’s hips rutted. Kakeru’s name left him, thick as he pressed his lips under his jaw, and Kakeru stroked him in return. The slight scratch of fabric, mingling with the eking heat of his palm, made him want to melt. To sink down into the body beneath him, becoming all and nothing. 

With another slow rut, though, came a deep shudder, and a jolt. As Kakeru’s hand pinned the fabric, he felt himself slip past the elastic, and for the barest moment, the tip of him laid naked against the inside of Kakeru’s wrist.

He pressed needily against the stiffness under his hand in turn, and Kakeru’s breath, low and panting, hitched. Yuki slid the weight of his palm from him, and with prodding fingers, nervous and experimental, he felt him through the fly hole at the front of his boxers. 

Feeling his skin, overly warm. Finding the slow pull of heat as his blood curled through him, keeping him hard. 

He lifted his face from the crook of Kakeru's neck to look down at him. His face was tinged red, but his eyes remained dark, falling lower and lower into that base need. His lips were parted in a pant, wet from his tongue darting and teeth drawing them in. Yuki wanted to touch his lower lip, reddened and used, and feel him say the words again. 

_ I like you. _

Instead, he trailed his fingers to the elastic waistband. He gave Kakeru a look, accompanied by a questioning tug, and Kakeru drew in that battered lip again as he nodded.

To slide his boxers off required some shifting around — Yuki’s feet returning to the floor as he allowed Kakeru to raise his hips, Kakeru’s hands leaving him, clutching barely at the sheets in the interim. But still, Yuki hesitated. Biting the inside of his cheek, raising his eyes to Kakeru’s again in another silent ask of permission, before dragging them slow off of his hips and legs.

Kakeru turned his head away. He squirmed, and Yuki thought maybe he was embarrassed, being so exposed. 

He could only think of how oddly pretty he found him, just then. Handsome, and pretty.

Yuki leaned forward again, bringing a knee to the edge of the bed, as he laid a hand onto one of his hip bones. Not so distinct as it was when they were younger, when Kakeru was all metabolism and lean muscle alone, but now accompanying a body more filled out with adulthood. An extra inch or two in height. A broadening of his chest and shoulders. His stomach softened, the shadows of his ribs no longer noticeable.

The base of his palm settled in the expanse between the bone and his groin, along the little stretch of muscle that ran taut. And he let it settle there for a long moment, thinking of how nice his hand fit in the space, before moving on.

He drew his thumb lightly over the underside of Kakeru’s erection, and watched as his legs tensed and pulled slightly inward. He gasped, fingers squeezing into the sheets, but his face remained turned away, eyes pinched closed. 

“Kakeru,” Yuki said, trying to coax him to look at him. When he only squirmed again, a deep flush making his ear red, Yuki found himself resuming his position over him, if only to reach out and nudge his chin with his fingers.

Kakeru looked at him, and he saw his eyes were resolute. 

“Is this okay?” Yuki asked. “Are you…”

He quieted as Kakeru’s hands slid up the outside of his thighs, fingers slipping under the hem of his underwear and stopping to press in the dip of his hips. He shivered, and Kakeru swallowed.

“I’m feeling,” he said, voice low as his eyes laid heavy down where his hands lie, “a little lonely here. You know?”

He knew. He breathed a small laugh and leaned down, brushing a kiss to his jaw, only to breathe in harsh as Kakeru’s fingers shifted and tugged at the fabric.

“Mm. I figured.”

He sat up again to let Kakeru pull them down at least some of the way, watching his face as he exposed him, too. He wasn’t quite as deliberate as he had been, his fingers quick to pinch and yank down on the hem, but he was similarly pensive. His hands squeezing the tops of his thighs, now bare. Thumbs pressing as close as they could get without actually touching him, buried instead in the coarse hair of the junction.

Yuki felt himself twitch under his ogling. A quick surge of modesty, whisked away by that curious and wanting stare.

Slowly, though, he moved himself from Kakeru’s hands to push his underwear off the rest of the way. As he did so, he skimmed a hand down Kakeru’s thigh, in part to tease, in part to say _ I’m not going anywhere__. _ He delighted in the little pleading look that he gave him, feeling himself smile. 

And when he returned, Kakeru’s hands pressed again to his legs, though this time he pushed down in a way that forced Yuki to sit against his thighs. It was purposeful; Yuki knew this as he sank against him. Still, a stuttered breath left him when they touched — brushing vaguely at first, heat on heat, until Kakeru reached forward and took them both under his hand.

Yuki cursed. He found purchase against Kakeru’s hip, but something in him made him jut forward with impatience. His other hand fell to the bed where he leaned his weight, and, looming over him, he descended his mouth to Kakeru’s, where he groaned another, more distinct word to his lips.

“_Kakeru._”

Under him, Kakeru pitched his hips up. With his tongue pressed hard against his, his hand rubbing them together in a difficult pace, he moaned throaty and long.

There was a sense of feeling absolutely everything and nothing. Overwhelmed by the simple humanity of skin and hands and mouths, felt so fully that Yuki couldn’t focus on any one thing for long. He felt the kiss become sloppy and breathless. His mind, disoriented from the scathing touch, fell numb with plain words — _please,_ and _more,_ and _fuck,_ before cycling back to a _please _more heeding than the last. His skin buzzed. He thrust slowly into Kakeru’s hold, and, when Kakeru pulled away, both from the kiss and the touch, he trembled watching him spit and lay a heavy tongue into his hand, before reaching down to bring them together again.

Yuki buried his mouth into his neck, licking hot before deciding to torture him with a sucking bruise. There, ear partially pressed to his jaw, he could hear the heady pants that left him. The strangled noises that at times escaped as groans, other times as little whimpers. He could feel his pulse rabbiting beneath his lip. 

And still, despite the overwhelm, he only wanted to touch more. 

He slid a hand down Kakeru’s chest, down past his stomach rising and falling in shallow waves, until he reached the skin under his navel. As he skirted his hand up under his shirt, he felt overcome with the want to mark him. On his shoulders, over his chest. Had Kakeru not pinned him where he sat, he would wish to sink down and lay a sucking bruise to his hip, too. A dotted treasure map of where he had gone, leaving others to guess what he had done. 

He pushed himself up from Kakeru’s neck, and, sitting straight, he looked down at the man lying under him: head tilted back, eyes peering open in question. A dull sheen of sweat lying along his hairline. Tongue pressed just slightly against his lip. 

Yuki tugged up on Kakeru’s shirt. He needed to see more — to see all of him.

Kakeru, getting the message, let him take it off. Pausing, shifting, hand pulling away momentarily again before descending back. As Yuki leaned down to take the skin of his collarbone between his teeth, Kakeru tilted his head back with a keen.

“_Yuki._”

Yuki pressed his hand hot against the side of his ribs. He felt Kakeru’s hand stop, then return to its pace. As he sucked a bruise into him, he felt it quicken.

That, he knew, was drawing him closer and closer to his end.

He dotted another bite to his shoulder, and another to the side of his neck as he returned there, pressing closed eyes to his skin. So close again to Kakeru’s voice, hearing him whine needy, sounding as though he, too, were close.

He shivered. 

_ One more time. I just want... _

“Kakeru,” he breathed, driving his hips into him again, “say my name.”

A short grunt left him. Yuki felt his hand tighten, felt him try to slow the pace into strokes long and full, but he knew it wouldn’t last long.

Kakeru said his name again, and a pang pulsed through Yuki’s blood. He brought his face away from his neck, hot and damp with sweat and open kisses, and stared down at him. Back into those dark eyes, lidded and drifting.

He brought a hand to his face and pressed his thumb to his lower lip. Against the speckled bruise, agitated and red from Yuki’s teeth. Wet and swollen.

“Tell me again,” he said, feeling the tightness in his lower belly as he rut again into his grip. “Tell me you like me.”

Kakeru groaned. 

“I like you.” His pace returned to fast and shallow as he said it, and, as he arched somewhat, Yuki knew he was nearing his end. “_Fuck_, Yuki, I really like—”

Yuki kissed him.

It was careless, and wet, and wanting. The taste of him and the thrum of his words were the only thing he could bear to hang onto as he thrust uselessly into his hand, against his length thick and hard with the brink of collapse. He gripped at his hair, his neck, his shoulder, until finally, he felt that tightness bind him, and with a terrible moan, he came. He spilled hot over Kakeru’s hand and onto his stomach, hips stuttering as it left him. And as Kakeru stroked hard once, twice, and three times, he soon followed, leaving a cry in the hollow of Yuki’s mouth as his passion left him in jarring, aching throbs.

The silence that followed was blinding. Yuki, as he parted from Kakeru’s mouth, felt suddenly heavy as his senses voyaged back to him. Behind his eyelids, he could sense the light of his bedside lamp. He became aware again of the rest of his bed, the furniture in his room, his belongings scattered on the floor. The walls knocked with settling. Upstairs, someone walked around, making the ceiling creak. In the distance, a motorcycle sped down the street, short and firey, before it was gone.

The world came back to him in small pieces.

He laid his forehead to Kakeru’s, slick with sweat, and could do little more than breathe in long and open-mouthed. Kakeru, he heard, did much the same. It was another moment before he felt his hand leave them, and then, finally, the silence was broken with Kakeru clearing his throat, croaking a tired, wondering, “Um.”

Yuki opened his eyes. Though he didn’t feel like parting just yet, he sat up, slow, and saw Kakeru awkwardly keep his hand raised from the bed. But, first, he saw the mess pooled over his stomach.

“Oh. Uh.” 

Kakeru, too, looked down at himself, and he spurted a short laugh before letting his head crash back to the bed.

“Yun-Yu-u-un,” he whined. “Help.”

Yuki looked around, feeling lost in his own room.

“Yeah, just… hold on a second.”

He slid himself off the bed, finding and quickly tugging his underwear back on as he crossed the room. He grabbed the box of tissues and returned, holding it out for him.

Kakeru took it and laid a canopy of tissues over him. His nose scrunched as he wiped himself off. 

“Damn,” he said, taking more as the thin sheen left behind grew sticky. “You know, I didn’t really plan on like, getting involved in a _ bukkake _ session tonight, but I guess I should have really taken the advice of being prepared for anything to heart.”

Yuki shook his head. While his mind still spiraled, still feeling as though he were returning to reality, Kakeru seemed undeterred. 

“Gross.”

“Not gross, just a fuckin’ mess.” 

Kakeru sat up, finally, and stuck his tongue out as the tissues laid in his lap. He looked around, then, down at the floor with a hum, before looking back at Yuki.

“Your room is like the Shadow Realm.”

Yuki quirked a brow. He fussed with his sleeve, twisting the button between his fingers. “Huh?”

“It’s where all of my belongings go to die. Seriously, where are my clothes? And how did _you_ manage to keep something on?”

“Oh.” Yuki looked down, first at his shirt, then at the floor. He swiped Kakeru’s boxers into his hand and held them out to him. “You didn’t take it off.”

“_I__,_” Kakeru huffed, taking the item and tugging them over his feet and calves, “was a little preoccupied.”

As he stood, moving the tissues aside and pulling his boxers up the rest of the way, he looked down at himself. Yuki noticed the blooming marks he had left on him, and watched as Kakeru prodded at the one on his collar. Then, his hand trailed downward, and his face grimaced again at the scene of his stomach.

“You should go clean up,” Yuki said.

“Yeah. Hey, do you think your neighbor would pitch a fit if I stood outside and let the rain do it for me?”

“Why would you do that?”

“I’ve never gotten clean in the rain before! Seems like something adventurers have to do.”

“I think they find lakes or something for that. Besides,” he said, as Kakeru passed him to step into the hall, “I don’t think you have much to worry about. The biggest adventures you go on seem to be between the fridge and the couch.”

“Oh, not true! I would say that tonight was an adventure.”

Yuki crossed his arms, feeling a stab of warmth hit his heart. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah! I mean, _I_ would say doing whippets at Tanaka’s was pretty adventurous of me.”

Yuki reached out to lay a punch onto his shoulder. Although Kakeru yelped, he laughed.

“God, geez, I’m joking! I would never. You know me, I’m too pure.”

Yuki’s stare was withering. 

“The only pure thing about you is how purely stupid you can be.”

“Oh, Yuki.” Kakeru sighed, raising a hand to his chest. “After all we’ve been through.”

He gave Yuki a look, striking between pouting and knowing, and it made something in Yuki soften. He sighed, reaching up to rub at the burn reappearing on his neck, and gave him a shooing nod.

“Go clean up already.”

“Fine, fine. Hey, do you still have those M&M’s lying around? I could kill for some.”

Yuki shrugged, and with that, Kakeru at last disappeared to the bathroom, leaving Yuki to stand alone in the doorway. Though he heard the water run, he heard little else; making his way to the kitchen, the rest of his apartment falling back to him as the world rooted him again to his physical footprint, he wondered, not for the first time, what Kakeru was thinking. If he was looking at the rest of the bruises laid into him, or noticing how slow the redness was to leave his cheeks. Seeing for the first time the mark on his lip that wasn’t from Yuki, and the rest that were. Scrubbing the remnants of their night from his skin, thinking about what they had done, and how it had happened.

Yuki grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, but didn’t drink from it. He leaned against the counter, and let the quiet of the late night retake him. 

It was a short while before Kakeru wandered to where he was. Back in his t-shirt, legs still bare. He tilted his head at Yuki as he approached him, but his movements were muted as he became aware of the hour. 

Yuki held the water bottle out to him. He knocked back a long sip, eyeing Yuki over it. 

He still had some strands fall long into his vision. As he reached to set the water down on the counter, Yuki raised a hand to brush them back with his fingers.

_ You should get a haircut_, he wanted to say. He wanted to say, when Kakeru looked at him warm yet subdued, his hands settling hushed and airy on his sides, _ What happens now? _

He found, though, as Kakeru kissed him again, slow and worn, he didn’t have to ask. Not yet, at least. For now, he could kiss him back, tender and long, and know, with renewed confidence, that he would have many chances to do it again. He could hold his face in his hand and know that it wouldn’t be the last time he would feel him so close. He could breathe into and sink against him, call on that moment of becoming something both primal and beyond, and know that they had been taken by one another, and would want to take each other again. 

He could look at him and know that he wouldn’t leave. Those fears, so stinging and embedded in him, finally made distant and unwarranted just by a single look. 

The night had been long, Yuki thought. 

The words could wait until morning.

**Author's Note:**

> well wasn't this a ride. lmao. title from ["sleepover" by hayley kiyoko.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6jxPFtIAnw) other songs that drove this bad boy:
> 
> [sober ii (melodrama) / lorde](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8j-PqSFHcc)  
[bury a friend / billie eilish](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUHC9tYz8ik)  
[passenger seat / death cab for cutie](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0Iv4onsrIE)  
[happy / mitski](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJ0O2vDT0VE)
> 
> also, you can find my other fruits basket fics here @ [a-bigail](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacepuck/pseuds/a-bigail) :)
> 
> thanks for reading!
> 
> hmu @ yunsoh.tumblr.com
> 
> -abby


End file.
